The present invention relates to a keyboard for data entry and particularly a multifunctional keyboard that equips the function of a guarding pad, clipping documents and preventing from dust.
Accompanying the flourishing innovations and developments of information technology, computers have become indispensable tools for many people in their daily life and work. Besides being widely used for processing business data, the computers also have been adopted for people""s daily household works, such as browsing the Web on the Internet, purchasing, chatting, word processing, and the like. Keyboard is one of the important communication interfaces between people and the computer. The keyboard usually has a plurality of button keys located on the surface to represent different notations. When in use, users generally have to rest the wrist on table and strike the button keys with fingers for entering input data into the computer. It often happens that users have to sit in front of the computers for a long period of time to do work on the computers. However, hand operations on the keyboard generally do not conform to ergonomics in the present design of computers. In recent years there are a growing number of cases and reports indicated that users"" wrists are prone to suffer from injury when operating the keyboard for a long period of time. Hence more and more people are trying to use wrist guarding pads to prevent the wrists from injury.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional keyboard and wrist pad. The keyboard 10 is for computer use and has a plurality of button keys located on the surface to represent different notations, including character keys, numeral keys and function keys. As the top surfaces of the button keys on the keyboard 10 is above the table top 12 for a certain distance, users have to raise the wrists to operate the keyboard when directly using the table top 12 to support the wrists. The excessive lifting of the wrists tends to incur injury on the wrists. To prevent mentioned problem, conventional approach is to place a wrist guarding pad 14 behind a rear side 16 of the keyboard 10. The wrist guarding pad 14 is a board with a slant top surface tapered from the rear side 16 of the keyboard 10 towards the table top 12. When an user does operations on the keyboard 10, the wrist may be rested on the wrist guarding pad 14. As the wrist guarding pad 14 has an elevation slightly greater than the table top 12, user""s wrist may be supported by the wrist guarding pad 14 without lifting excessively and may be prevented from injury.
Although conventional wrist guarding pads may prevent users"" wrists from injury, the keyboard and the wrist guarding pad are separate elements. When not in use, the wrist guarding pad occupies a lot of space. When in use, the wrist guarding pad and the keyboard should be assembled first. The wrist guarding pad also is easy to lose when moving the keyboard. All of the above creates a lot of inconveniences. As a result, the wrist guarding pad is still not widely accepted on the market. There are still rooms for improvement.
The primary object of the invention is to provide a multifunctional keyboard that has a guarding pad to protect users"" wrists and also to function as a document board for holding documents.
Another object of the invention is to provide a multifunctional keyboard that has a guarding pad for covering the keyboard when the keyboard is not in use to guard the keyboard from contaminating by dust.
A further object of the invention is to provide a multifunctional keyboard that allows the guarding pad nestling under the keyboard to prevent the keyboard from occupying too much space.
The multifunctional keyboard of the invention consists of a keyboard body and a guarding pad. The keyboard body has two sides each has a slide channel. The slide channel has a front end and a rear end. The guarding pad includes an upper lid, a first wing plate and a second wing plate. The two wing plates are located respectively on a lower side of two edges of the upper lid, and have respectively a slide element located on an inner side at a front end thereof to couple with the slide channel of the keyboard body. The first wing plate further has an universal joint interposed between the inner side of the front end and the slide element for connecting the two.
The slide element of the guarding pad may be moved reciprocally in the slide channel of the keyboard body. When the slide element is moved to the front end of the slide channel, the guarding pad is covered the keyboard body surface to protect the keyboard. When the slide element is moved to the rear end of the slide channel, the guarding pad may be engaged with the rear side of the keyboard body to support users"" wrists during operating the keyboard. When users want to enter data on the keyboard from documents, the slide element of the second wing plate may be disengaged from the slide channel, and through turning the universal joint, the guarding pad may be lifted upright with the fist wing plate resting on table top such that the guarding pad can function as a document board for holding documents. When the guard pad is not in use, the slide element of the guarding pad may be moved to the rear end of the slide channel and turned 180 degrees to nestle under the keyboard body.
The guarding pad of this invention offers the function of supporting users"" wrists, protecting the keyboard, movable for storing or serving as a document board for holding documents. Thus it has more added values and has much more appealing to consumers.
The foregoing, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.